How many ways to convert bitmap to string and vice-versa?

Question

In my application i want to send bitmap image to the server in the form of string, i want to know how many ways are available to convert a bitmap to string. now i am using Base64 format for encoding and decoding, it takes little bit more memory. is there any other possibilities to do the same thing in different ways which takes less memory cosumptions. Now i am using this code.

Resources r = ShowFullImage.this.getResources();
Bitmap bm = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(r, R.drawable.col);
ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();  
bm.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 100, baos); //bm is the bitmap object   
byte[] b = baos.toByteArray();

String encodedImage = Base64.encodeToString(b, Base64.DEFAULT);

Answer 1

public String BitMapToString(Bitmap bitmap){
     ByteArrayOutputStream baos=new  ByteArrayOutputStream();
     bitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG,100, baos);
     byte [] b=baos.toByteArray();
     String temp=Base64.encodeToString(b, Base64.DEFAULT);
     return temp;
}

Here is the reverse procedure for converting string to bitmap but string should Base64 encoding

/**
 * @param encodedString
 * @return bitmap (from given string)
 */
public Bitmap StringToBitMap(String encodedString){
   try {
      byte [] encodeByte=Base64.decode(encodedString,Base64.DEFAULT);
      Bitmap bitmap=BitmapFactory.decodeByteArray(encodeByte, 0, encodeByte.length);
      return bitmap;
   } catch(Exception e) {
      e.getMessage();
      return null;
   }
}